Christine O’Donnell’s Ignorance of Science

September 25, 2010 — Ron Chusid

Last week’s clip from Bill Maher showing how Christine O’Donnell dabbled in witchcraft was amusing but not of much consequence. This week’s clip should be sufficient to demonstrate that Christine O’Donnell is not qualified to be in being in the Senate. Unfortunately her ignorance about evolution is shared by far too many Republicans.

O’DONNELL: You know what, evolution is a myth. And even Darwin himself –

MAHER: Evolution is a myth?!? Have you ever looked at a monkey!

O’DONNELL: Well then, why they — why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?

Evolution, of course, rather than being a myth has been proven to be true and has become the basis of modern biology.

Bill Maher, while far ahead of Christine O’Donnell, has never been the greatest on scientific issues. He knew enough to realize the O’Donnell was wrong, but his response also is not entirely correct. Yes, as he said, evolution is slow, and we could not expect observe this in monkeys. He missed the point that evolution is not about monkeys evolving into humans. Monkeys and humans have common ancestors. Monkeys and humans are continuing to evolve (at too slow a rate to observe), but modern monkeys are evolving into something totally different from humans.

It also appears that O’Donnell was going to repeat a claim made by some creationists that Darwin ultimately decided against evolution. This claim, as with pretty much all claims made by creationists, is false.